13 Oct 2008

Samoa will be hosting series of meetings to build businesses in the Pacific Region

6:38 am on 13 October 2008

Samoa will this week host a series of regional private sector meetings with countries from across the Pacific in a bid to achieve growing and sustainable businesses.

Two back to back meetings will be held including phase two of the Business Toolkits initiative, launched two weeks ago, and the Pacific Regional Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises Forum.

The project manager of the Pacific Islands Forum's Business Toolkits initiative, Alise Stunnenberg, says the aim is create stronger businesses, to help build the economy.

"We're looking at putting some proposals together where we would be able to provide direct assistance to strengthen business development agencies in the countries, and from there, filter it down to how we can effectively address the weaknesses that have been identified."

Alise Stunnenberg says participants in the Business Toolkits meeting include Fiji, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands and Samoa.

Around 100 participants from the public and private sectors and non government organisations are expected to attend the three day gathering.